


in a name- Aegon

by American_Pandora



Series: and they would smile at the beauty of destruction [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dance of the Dragons, Death, Dragons, F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Multi, Slurs, Snapshots, death of a child, in a name, targaryen expected incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 06:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12315825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/American_Pandora/pseuds/American_Pandora
Summary: Snapshots from the lives of all Aegons born to House Targaryen, from the first Lord of Dragonstone to the son of Elia Martell & all the ones in between.





	1. I. The First Rider

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is a project I’ve been working on for quite some time, and I’m really excited about it! I’m doing small snapshots of all the lives of the many Aegons- I plan to do this as well for the Daeron, and Rhaenys, etc, possibly even moving on to the Brandons of House Stark. Anyway, let me know what you think! 
> 
> Disclaimer: I make no profit from this & definitely don’t own this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **I.**   
>  **Aegon Targaryen**   
>  **_”The First Rider”_ **   
>  **son of Lord Gaemon Targaryen and Daenys the Dreamer**

A crack had appeared in his egg. 

Aegon did a little dance- one in no way dignified for the future Lord of Dragonstone- and went running for Elaena and Maegella. 

"My egg! My egg!" He cried as he ran screaming into the nursery, carrying the black dragon egg in his arm steadily even if the boy himself tripped precariously upon rounding a corner. 

His sisters and his mother were there, his sisters with their dragon eggs as well. Elaena's gold and Maegella's green weren't as far along as his, though. 

Mother- with her long hair and eyes that seemed often sad- looked upon him with pride as he laid the cracking egg at her feet. "It's only right that the first dragon egg born on Dragonstone be born to the first Lord of Dragonstone born here as well." 

Aegon beamed up at his mother. There was movement from his egg; a wing had punched through his shell. 

His dragon would be as black as his egg! Aegon moved forward; Mother stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. "This is your dragon's last test. He must do it himself." 

Aegon nodded solemnly, and sat near his egg to watch. 

Elaena's and Maegella's were quick to catch up, though Maegella, who was but a toddler, eventually crawled into Mother's lap and fell asleep. 

"Have you thought of a name?" Mother asked him and Elaena. 

His sister nodded shyly. "I thought about Meraxes." 

Aegon looked at Elaena, who was barely a year younger than him and would be his wife, someday, as fitting for those who were the last dragonriders. "As in one of the War Goddesses? The Goddess of Rightful Retribution? Is that sacrilege, Mother?" 

The future Lord of Dragonstone looked uneasily at his Mother. He had heard from sailors and his own family members- indeed, his grandfather Aenar and his father Gaemon and his Uncle Vaegor- that the gods of Valyria were dead. The Gods had abandoned Valyria and that was why The Doom had happened, why Uncle Vaegor had insisted on his Velaryon wife raising their children with the New Religion. 

Mother's face was sad, her eyes far away. She called for a maid to come and take Maegella to her room along with her egg.

Daenys the Dreamer rose out of the chair and past her children, her feet taking her toward the easternmost balcony automatically. 

She had been but a child of eight when The Dream of The Doom came to her. She had been ten when Father and Mother packed up her, Gaemon and Vaegor to Dragonstone. 

Daenys had married Gaemon at six-and-ten, birthed Aegon at eight-and-ten, Elaena at nine-and-ten and Maegella at one-and-twenty. 

When Daenys was pregnant with Maegella, her dragon Visus had laid an abnormally large clutch. 

It was like the dragons knew, for the next year The Doom happened. 

Sometimes Daenys heart called out for Valyria, ached for The Fourteen Flames, the mountains she had grown up beneath. She was not made for this bleak cold island of salt and stone and smoke. She missed warm winds and the many metal houses of the lords that reached like fingers to the sky. 

Her children had picked their eggs from Visus's clutch; the rest, but for three, Daenys had laid within the depths of the Dragonmont, where the red rock would keep them warm until their rider was born and called out to them.

It was a vision from her childhood finally making sense. 

A cracking noise drew her back to reality; the sky outside had darkened considerably. Her children sat, watching her patiently. They knew their mother was used to bouts of melancholy.

Aegon' dragon was half out of his egg; her little boy looked delighted. For a moment, all the Aegons of the future could be seen in his face. 

But only for a moment. 

"I think Meraxes is a great name, Elaena. There's no better way to worship a god than to name the mounts of the gods after them." She said to her daughter as she sat on the floor. Dragon hatching was always very exciting. 

Right before the all black dragon escaped from his shell, Daenys looked at her son."And what shall you name your dragon, my boy?" 

Aegon smiled at her, his charisma smiling through. In hundreds and hundreds of years one of her ancestors, an Usurper, would have a smile just like it. 

"Balerion. To compliment Meraxes." 

The next morning, the dragon count on Dragonstone rises to eight. 

Balerion, Meraxes and Vhagar hatch within hours of each other. 

Meraxes, the Goddess of Rightful Retribution, Fertility, and Lust.

Vhagar, the God of Battle, Sorcery and Subterfuge.

Balerion, the God of War, Souls who die in War or battle, Dragons, and Conquest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the name of Daenys’ dragon, Visus, means Vision in Latin


	2. II. The Conqueror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **II.**  
>  **Aegon I Targaryen**  
>  **"Aegon the Conqueror"**   
> **Rider of Balerion **  
> 27 BC - 37 AC  
>  **son of Lord Aerion Targaryen & Lady Valaena Velaryon******

He doesn't ever remember _not_ being bonded to Balerion. The dragon is always there, in the back of his mind. 

The common people call him _The Black Dread_ , for that is what he is to them. Balerion would never fit in the Great Hall of Dragonstone. His teeth are the size of Aegon himself, and the thought is both terrifying and awe inspiring. 

When they fly, Aegon swears Balerion's eyes could span the entire width of Dragonstone. 

Visenya envies him, he knows, though she and Vhagar not being one, not being bonded, is an alien thought. The two are rather stiff creatures, and certainly very formidable. 

Orys would kill for any dragon at all, and Rhaenys holds to the belief that Meraxes is the most beautiful. 

In the distance, their dragons fly on the horizon, rising and dipping with the air currents, outlined by the sunrise. Rhaenys slumbers in his bed; from the balcony in his room, he sees Visenya and Orys in the training yard, Dark Sister glimmering like the coals of a fire. The clash of steel invigorates him, and he leaves his sister to her sleep. 

The walk to the chamber is short. Beneath him, painted in red and cut in excellent detail, a map of Westeros awaits him. 

Aegon glances at the figures representing the military might of every king from the Gardeners to the Starks in the North and the Arryns in the Vale, even the Iron Islands, configuring a new strategy, a new plan, recording it to paper so that his siblings might point out the weak spots in it later. 

And he plots. 

In the distance, Balerion screeches. It sounds like a victory cry.


	3. III. The Rightful Heir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **III.**   
>  **Aegon Targaryen**   
>  **_"The Rightful Heir"_ **   
>  **Rider of Quicksilver**   
>  **26 AC - 43 AC**   
>  **son of King Aenys & Queen Alyssa Velaryon**

Rhaena does not ask him to stay. She does not plead or beg; she does not even cry. But he can see the pain in his sister-wife's beautiful eyes, and does not protest when she squeezes his hand a little too tightly. "Come say goodbye to the girls, my king." Rhaena commands. Aegon has always thought she was an excellent princess, but she's an even better queen.

The men he has stationed here on The Isle of Faces will hopefully be enough to keep his girls safe, should the worse come to pass. Rhaena's Dreamfyre isn't visible from the sky during the day- should Maegor come looking, it won't be a dragon that gives them away. 

"Papa!" Aerea squeals as soon as he enters the tent, before babbling away in a tongue only babes can speak. Rhalla, Aerea's quieter twin, claps her hands at his presence, but otherwise only opens her arms to say she wants up. 

Aegon knows he shouldn't, that the longer he waits here the harder it will be to leave, but he doesn't want his baby girls' last memory of him to be of him shaking his head and saying no. 

So he picks Rhalla up first and settles her on his hip and squats down to put Aerea on the other. 

The scent of lavender and milk and babe encompasses him. 

Rhaena watches before hugging him and the girls all at once. He gives his wife a kiss and Aerea, so much her father's boisterous daughter, laughs and demands more. 

But then Rhaena takes the girls from him and sets them on each of her hips, and Aegon knows it is time to go. 

Rhaena follows her husband as the garrison cheers their King- _her king_ \- on. 

As Aegon flies off, it is tempting to follow him, to hop on Dreamfyre and follow him so that even if he dies they would die together. 

But she has her, _his_ daughters to think of too. 

And they cannot learn how to be Dragons if they are not raised by them.

(When Aegon dies, she knows, she feels it immediately in her breast like a cold knife to the heart. The girls know- they cry and cannot be consoled. And all the faces on The Isle of Faces cry with them.)

When Aegon dies, as he and Quicksilver burn and fall into The Gods' Eye, he smells the burning of flesh, he is vaguely aware of hitting the water and then, and then- 

A hand reaches for him through the water and he grabs it without thought. There's no burning battlefield around him, though, just miles and miles of mist that smells like Rhaena’s mother’s milk and her lavender perfume and something else that makes Aegon's heart ache, something he can only describe as _sky, wind, heat,_ and the way it clung to his family when they rode their dragons. 

He suddenly realizes that he's no longer holding on to the hand, that he's on Quicksilver once more, that the air is filled with a new scent. Something that smells like roses, something familiar. 

There's also a woman who can only be an ancestor, with her silver hair and violet eyes and silks of black and red. Who happens to be sitting on a large gold dragon, so utterly familiar to him.

"From one failed conquerer to another, welcome home, Grandson." Rhaenys Targaryen smiles at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just find this Aegon- King Jaehaerys I & Good Queen Alysanne’s oldest brother- to be particularly tragic, idk why


	4. IV. The Fallen One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **IV**  
>  **Aegon Targaryen**  
>  ** _"The Fallen One"_**   
> **50 AC - 58 AC**  
>  **firstborn son of King Jaehaerys I and Good Queen Alysanne**

He sees; he is both blessed and cursed by it. 

His Uncle Viserys, killed by Maegor the Cruel, his own uncle, is one of his favorite companions. Vis had only been fifteen at the time of his death. He’s full of ideas for pranks and points out places where he knows secret tunnels to be. He takes great joy, for a ghost, in pointing out similarities between him and his Uncle Aegon. 

Viserys is the only happy ghost he knows. His mother says he was that way in life, too. 

That’s not to say that the many ghosts of the workers who built the Red Keep don’t smile at him, caught in a daily routine as they are of working, of making bricks, on setting the stone, on painting the walls. These ghosts come by day and fade by night, stuck in death the same routine they had in life. They don’t notice the living around them, or that they are dead, or that the Keep is finished. 

They just smile at him like he is an apprentice to one of their workers and get on with their ghostly day. 

Uncle Aegon smiles at him very rarely; his smiles are reserved for Aunt Rhaena, Aerea, and Rhalla, and for talking about his wife and daughters. 

Aegon sees his namesake but once in awhile; the death of the first unnumbered Aegon in the God's Eye leaves him unchained and unbound. A watery death, a sacred place, magic of the Children of the Forest, these are his only working theories on why his Uncle is not bound to where he died like Viserys is bound to the Red Keep. The ghost follows his daughters around Westeros, flies the ghost of his Quicksilver next to Dreamfyre, and moons over his still living sister-wife. 

The living Aegon spends much of his time running from his great uncle and Tyanna of the Tower. Though she was not a Targaryen, and was eventually killed by the man, the gods must have judged that her soul be tied to Maegor in death as she tied it to his with dark magic in life.

She whines a lot, for a ghost. 

It is him running from Maegor and Tyanna one day, running from their otherworldly shrieks and ghastly groans and visions that look too real that causes Aegon to misstep from his place upon the parapets, and fall into the courtyard. 

Thankfully, this Aegon does not join them in their life after death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not much is known about this Aegon other than he didn’t live for long. Artistic liberties were most definitely taken.


	5. V. The Littlest Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **V.**   
>  **Aegon Targaryen**   
>  **_"The Littlest Dragon"_ **   
>  **84 AC- 84 AC**   
>  **Son of Prince Baelon Targaryen & Princess Alyssa Targaryen**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:**
> 
> death of a baby. please account your own sensibilities before reading; it is not essential to read this chapter in order to enjoy the rest of the story.

He will not live long, the Maester warns her, but her and Baelon's child lives seven days, and so must be named in the eyes of the Gods. 

Had she born a healthy son, she would have named him Jaehaerys. But she did not, and so when they stand in the Great Sept of Remembrance and the High Septon asks for the babe's name, and Baelon looks at her in a panic because the child hadn't been supposed to live this long and they didn't discuss a name, she answers the only name that comes to her: "Aegon." 

Aegon, after her oldest brother that she doesn't even remember anymore. 

Aegon, after her uncle who should have been king. 

Aegon, after her great-grandfather. Aegon who was the first dragon of Westeros, a man strong and brave and a renowned warrior. 

Just like her Aegon, the littlest dragon of them all. He fights so hard to live, with fluttering breaths and purple toes and fingers.

Her son hangs on for three more painful weeks, and when he dies, it is overnight, in his crib, beneath a Targaryen banner. 

The only ones who grieve are she, her husband, Mother and Father. 

Viserys and Daemon believe their brother died shortly after birth; the court has been warned against mentioning Aegon within hearing of the Princes. 

On their next trip to Dragonstone, Alyssa insist she and Baelon hike into the depths of the Dragonmont and return half the ashes of their son to where their own dragons hatched. 

And so does life continue on.


	6. The Elder/ The Usurper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **VI.**   
>  **Aegon II Targaryen**   
>  **_"Aegon the Elder/ Aegon the Usurper"_ **   
>  **Rider of Sunfyre the Golden**   
>  **107 AC- 131 AC**   
>  **son of King Viserys Targaryen & his second wife, Queen Alicent Hightower**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING: gay slurs in this chapter, and inferences to sexual encounters of dubious consent. Tags have been updated accordingly.**

**_114 AC_ **

His mother tells him, when he is young, that he will marry his older half sister he _hates, hates, hates_ if he wants to get anywhere near the throne. 

Aegon just nods, and his grandfather, Ser Otto Hightower, smiles at him. 

Aegon says a prayer of thanks to the Gods when his half sister is married off to that pillow biter Laenor Velaryon. It serves her right.

* * *

**_122 AC_ **

When Aegon hears his Father mention to a courtier- it doesn't matter who, they're all bootlickers- that he is considering marrying Helaena off to Jacaerys, he gets faintly sick to his stomach. 

He does not desire his sister, but he does not want Jacaerys, Lucerys or Joffrey to have her. If _he_ cannot have her, then nobody else can. Especially not those bastards of that whore Rhaenyra- they don't even _look_ like Velaryons or Targaryens.

He persuades Helaena into coming with him, and then he throws himself before his Father, begging to marry her. 

His Father is weak and sentimental and lets them. 

It is the only time he ever begs for anything (he never even begs for the crown that should be his) and he feels so dirty and full of rage that he takes it out on some girl on the Street of Silk the night before his wedding and one of his Mother's servants the morning after. 

At least Jacaerys _Velaryon_ doesn't have Helaena. He, Aegon _Targaryen_ , does.

* * *

**_123 AC_ **

His heir is born a year later, silver and perfect, every bit a Targaryen. He is even born with a wife. 

He names his son Jaehaerys, after King Jaehaerys the Good, his own great-grandfather, and the girl Jaehaera, so none of Rhaenyra's brats get any ideas about who Jaehaera belongs to. 

He already imagines his son sitting on the Iron Throne, wearing the crown that Aegon's own father wears now. In these fantasies people call his son King Jaehaerys the Great, and his son frequently gives long speeches about how inspiring he found his Father, King Aegon the Great, and how much he appreciates the dedication his Father gave to getting the Crown that was his stolen birthright. 

( _When he learns of the bastards, born of his rage, he throws a bag of gold at his uncle Ser Gwayne Hightower and tells him to take care of it._

_He never thinks of them again._ )

* * *

**_127 AC_ **

Aegon finds himself overcome when, after Helaena gives birth to a second boy, Maelor, he realizes he's glad he married her and not his twit of a Hightower cousin, Denise. 

Helaena forgives his indiscretions because she is still his sister, and those bastards of his are all her nieces and nephews and Helaena is full of love. 

They also make beautiful, Valyrian featured children. 

As Jaehaerys and Jaehaera pile on the bed to meet their new brother, watching the way she holds herself, Aegon decides she would make a good queen; that she would look good, standing next to him as he sat on the Iron Throne.

* * *

**_129 AC_ **

When his Father dies, and Rhaenyra is still his heir, it is as though the Gods have conspired against him. 

The realm will not rise for him as king, Grand Maester Gerardys insists. King Viserys’s, gods rest his soul, will had been very clear. 

Aegon is mentally making plans for Jaehaera to wed one of Rhaenyra's sons- not one of her Strong bastards, the other Aegon will do- when her former Kingsguard lover requests an audience. 

And that's when Aegon learns the terrible, terrible truth. 

Rhaenyra will kill him, and his family, down to the youngest of his bastards, if he himself doesn't take the crown, Criston Cole insists. 

Images of Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, himself in dragon flame, come to mind and will not leave. 

He is crowned on a cold day with a sunny sky, and the realm splits open like an overheated, rotten fruit. 

Power rushes in his mouth, hot and metallic. 

Aegon has always known he was destined for great things. He did not have to beg for this crown; the people begged him to take it.

So he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote this one a little differently, as Aegon the Elder is such a controversial figure in the Dance of the Dragons. Here, he is portrayed as he would have seen himself- the disadvantaged hero. I did try to give him a bit of a redeeming moment when it came to moment of Maelor’s birth, though.


	7. VII. The Younger/ The Dragonsbane/ The Unlucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **VII.**  
>  **Aegon III Targaryen**  
>  ** _"Aegon the Younger/ Aegon The Dragonsbane/ Aegon the Unlucky”_**   
> **Rider of Stormcloud**  
>  **120AC- 157AC**  
>  **son of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and her second husband, Prince Daemon Targaryen**

His ghosts don’t ever leave him. He sees his siblings in all of his children. Daeron has the chin that had once been Lucerys’s, and that same damn rashness too. Daena throws her head back just the way Baela used too when she challenged, before being a mother softened out her rougher edges. Rhaena’s eyes widen much like her namesake’s used to when she finds herself surprised, and is just as gentle as her aunt. Sometimes Baelor holds his hands and plays peace maker between his siblings in the same tone of voice Jacaerys would when Aegon had skinned a knee or had gotten into a fight with Viserys. 

It happens with his brother’s children, too. Naerys holds herself in the same way Helaena did, quiet and pious, his own namesake little Aegon squinted his eyes like Aemond (And Aegon fries not to hear the voice in the back of his head that squawks _cruel, cruel, cruel_ ) and Aemon held his shoulders when he swung his sword like Alicent’s Daeron did. 

Daenera’s lady- his niece, her cousin, and one of Baela’s girls, little Laena- comes and retrieves him, bowing before he and Viserys. 

“The queen is cleaned up and ready to see you, Your Grace.” Laena murmured. 

The walk from his solar to Daenera’s birthing room is not terribly far, and yet, it is, Aegon thinks to himself bitterly. 

For a moment he stands in front of the door, wondering which ghost will haunt him through his newborn child this time. His mother, perhaps? Or his father, whose face he could hardly recall? Jaehaera, dead for spite? Jaehaerys? Baby Maelor?

He knocks twice; gently, so as not to wake the babe. 

“Come in, my love.” 

Daenera still shines with the effort of birth, but she glows, too, her silver hair in a neat braid falling over her shoulder onto a Velaryon sea-green nightgown, trimmed with Targaryen black. Effortlessly beautiful, as always. 

Sometimes he wonders what right he has to touch something so pure.

The babe is wrapped in a matching sea-green blanket, just as Daena and Rhaena had been. His sons had been wrapped in Targaryen red and black. Another daughter, then. A wife for Aemon, maybe, if the boy doesn’t use his Gods given gift with the sword in the Kingsguard. Or maybe a wife to one of Baela’s and Alyn’s sons. 

( _The great love of his daughter’s life will be a Velaryon. But it will not be the son, as Aegon thinks. It will be the father, her uncle by marriage. Such is the way of Targaryens and Velaryons._ ) 

He gives his wife- who he does love, as much as he is capable of loving- a small smile, one he reserves for the children and his brother and his long dead sisters and her. “Another beautiful daughter then, my queen?” 

Daenera nods, violet eyes tired yet strong. “I know we had not quite settled on a name yet for a girl, my husband. Shall we name her Viserra in honor of your brother, like we had planned for a son, Visenya perhaps, for the sister you never knew? Or...” His wife trails off, stroking their daughter’s cheek.

He can practically _see_ her brain spinning as he holds his hands out in a silent plea to hold his daughter, to start looking for those ghosts. 

Aegon is careful to support the babe’s head as Daenera purses her lips in search of the correct words.

“I was thinking perhaps we could name her Elaena. There hasn’t been an Elaena Targaryen since the first Lord of Dragonstone took his sister to wife.” 

“And after your sister, I imagine?”

“Yes.” Daenera is unabashed by the question, unashamed in wanting to name her child after her long dead sister.

Aegon searches this new babe’s face for any one of ten, a hundred, a thousand long dead ancestors and finds none, letting go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

Elaena. The name is fitting. And how can he deny her, when she has let him name their second son after Baela and their daughter after Rhaena, after his mother? 

“Elaena.” He tries the name on his tongue, to make sure it is not haunted. “What a lovely name. Elaena Targaryen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daeron I Targaryen- 143AC  
> Baelor I Targaryen- 144AC  
> Daena Targaryen- 145AC  
> Rhaena Targaryen- 147AC  
> Elaena Targaryen- 150AC
> 
> Aegon III Targaryen- 120AC  
> Daenera Velaryon- 127AC


End file.
